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Tourists continue to visit SA

Tourists continue to visit SA

Date: 2013-04-16
South Africa has once again announcedincreasing tourism numbers: the months from January to October 2012 showed an increase of 10,4%, with 7,535,498 tourist arrivals compared to 6,823,517 tourist arrivals for the same period in the previous year.

A total of 204,247 tourists from Germany visited South Africa from January to October 2012. This represents an increase of 12,2% compared to the corresponding period in 2011. Germany is one of the key traditional overseas markets for travel to South Africa, with the United States of America and the United Kingdom taking the lead.

Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwykis delighted with the continuing interest shown in South Africa. "Positive growth from the traditional markets - and Europe in particular - gives us confidence that the work we are doing to grow tourist arrivals is paying dividends. South Africa has every reason to feel confident about the state of its tourism industry going forward. The credit should go to the tourism industry for creatively and constructively working together to grow tourism to South Africa." Van Schalkwyk said during his visit to the ITB trade show in Berlin.

The minister also underlined the importance of the German market for South Africa, and stressed that the growth of arrivals from Germany must be maintained. To inspire and motivate German travellers, South African Tourism continues to intensify its marketing initiatives with German tour operators, and also approaches travel agents individually to educate them about the destination.

Van Schalkwyk also reiterated the importance of tourism as an economic growth engine for the country. Tourism has been identified as one of six priority sectors in South Africa to achieve economic growth and attract investment.

Tourism attracts foreign direct spend and creates jobs. In this regard, the country has identified the following targets: to attract 15 million arrivals by 2020; to increase the share of tourism in gross domestic product from R189 billion in 2009 to R499 billion in 2020, and to create more than 225,000 new jobs in tourism.